The ice has brought down power lines. I am writing this without electricity. I have no idea when it will return.
Yesterday the fruit trees were all in bloom. The ones that weren't covered, will be dead this morning. You can't burn bales to keep the ice and frost off the blooms, besides the fact that the EPA has declared April ozone month in the State, and the only burning can be done by farmers and ranchers. The rest of us are SOL. But because it is still raining and slushy outside. Drenching and drowning everything at times.
Brrr. . . Solar will be a must once we get to Kentucky. And a central fireplace. Husband has the house all worked out. Any suggestion on the company to use for solar? Willing to post for panels, wry grin.
I have a fire going. Will see if I can stay warm. Farmhand showed up with hot coffee!
Four hours later, electricity!
7 comments:
The ice may have saved the blooms. It works for the orange trees in Fl. Oh, and solar in the hollar may not work. I don't know if you will be getting a whole lot of sun. At least not enough to run a house hold. Maybe up on top of the hill, but I doubt enough in the hollar. You'll just have to go old school. LOL
We already know what angles and so forth. We just have to see the land.
The blossoms are dead. Ice doesn't save them here. It decimates them. Lived here long enough. All the orange grove owners I knew in Florida, burned bales to keep ice off. Doesnt mean you arent correct about oranges though. And this wasn't a sudden incapsulating of ice either. If they weren't beat off the trees, the freeze killed them.
Be sure when you do your solar that you are completely off-grid, otherwise you will STILL not have electricity in a power outage. Solar systems that are tied into the grid go down whenever the grid is off. If you do the more expensive off-grid option of using batteries for storage, or devising some kind of way to switch on and off-grid, you will be OK.
If it makes you feel any better, we woke up to 35 degree temperatures and its a sizzling 94 degrees outside right now. Crazy temperature range for one day!
I fear ice. It's the only weather condition that makes me twitch. Hopefully that is gone for you?
We have been having a stormy spring here in norther Utah, in that it is sunny, then cold, then rainy, then sunny again. I wouldn't want, and we haven't gotten ice here, but the flux is sort of enjoyable, to me, this year. Mostly. Last year all we got was clouds and rain and cold right up until it stopped raining for the summer and hit 90-100 plus. I much prefer the mix.
It was in the 80s here for the past 2 days but a small storm just blew through and cooled things off. It's been such a long cold winter here that I really think that if I'd have woken up to ice and slush I'd have sat down and cried.
Watch out for the slippery bits! We have had a long winter, interspersed with a few warm days (we sat on the patio having a beer in February).It is now almost mid April, and we still have some snow piles, snow storms and some bloody cold weather. Very out of the ordinary for us, as we usually have some tulips by now.
Take care,
Barb from Canada
I've purchased a lot of equipment from Northern Arizona Wind and Sun and been happy with their service and prices.
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